New Music Reviews
Scissor Sisters and Carlinhos Brown, Tower of LondonMonday, 23 July 2012
“It’s the oldest building in England,” Ana Matronic said breathlessly. “We’re probably going to behead someone.” The Tower of London is an unlikely venue for the fizzy pop monster that is Scissor Sisters, who dedicated one song to Anne Boleyn. In the end, no executions, or drawing or quartering, but they did have a couple of oversized beefeaters (pictured below) flanking the stage and dancing. Read more...
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Reissue CDs Weekly: Blur, Blancmange, The Smashing Pumpkins, Strange PassionSunday, 22 July 2012
Bruce Dessau Read more... |
Ondatrópica and Konkoma, Hackney EmpireSunday, 22 July 2012
What function does a critic even serve at an event like this? Some of the best Colombian musicians across several generations are playing some of the best music Colombia has ever produced to an audience that largely consists of blissfully happy Colombians on Colombian Independence Day. But before the party got into its stride there’s a non-Colombian support band to consider. Read more... |
Desdemona, Barbican HallSaturday, 21 July 2012
Peter Sellars has a talent for controversy, from his early days when he was the director who brought you Così fan tutte set in a diner on Cape Cod, Don Giovanni as a cocaine-snorting, Big Mac-eating slum thug, and Figaro getting married in Trump Tower. Read more... |
Dr John, Under The Bridge, LondonFriday, 20 July 2012
The omens did not augur well for this one. Under The Bridge, a venue beneath Chelsea Football Stadium, used to be an iffy nightclub called Purple but has been redesigned by the man behind America’s House of Blues chain into a shiny visual fusion of TGI Friday's and the Hard Rock Café. Read more... |
Madonna, Hyde ParkWednesday, 18 July 2012
Madonna earned her place in the pop elite many years ago, and there are many reasons for this, which needn't be reduced into a list. Certainly though, a big reason will be the obvious - how much better her fans' lives are with her songs in them. Read more... |
Paloma Faith, Somerset HouseWednesday, 18 July 2012
Paloma Faith has always struck me as a few cuts above your average conveyor belt post-Winehouse soul sister. A recent appearance on The Graham Norton Show in which she gave Russell Brand as good as she got in the verbals department suggests that there's more to this former magician's assistant than meets the eye. Read more... |
Neneh Cherry and the Thing, Village UndergroundMonday, 16 July 2012
In the grim windowless warehouse that is the Village Underground, Eighties hip-hop-pop princess Neneh Cherry told us that her current return to all things jazzy and experiment was born just down the road in Acton. This is only interesting in the sense that her three collaborators, The Thing, actually come from Sweden where Cherry herself is also based. Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Jimmy Page, Keith Jarrett, Elton John, Swing Out SisterSunday, 15 July 2012
Kieron Tyler Read more... |
Sharon van Etten, Oran Mor, GlasgowFriday, 13 July 2012
It is sometimes hard to be enthused by midweek gigs. Last night was one of those occasions, at least for the 30 seconds I thought I was going to be watching most of the show on the iPhone screen of the six feet of beard that planked itself in front of me just in time for the music starting. Those are the nights you need, as Sharon van Etten might say, “something that’s hard to describe”. Read more... |
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Brancusi Pompidou Centre, Paris review - founding father of...
120 sculptures, and so much more: the current Brancusi blockbuster at the Centre Pompidou, the first large Paris show of the Romanian-born...
CVC, Concorde 2, Brighton review - they have the songs and t...
The joy of CVC, when they catch fire, is the zing of gatecrashing a gang of cheeky, very individual personalities having their own private party....
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - meeting a...
Kahchun Wong, the Hallé’s principal conductor from the coming autumn season, presided in the Bridgewater Hall for the first time yesterday since...
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair is a writer, film-maker, and psychogeographer extraordinaire. He began his career in the poetic avant-garde of the Sixties and...
Nezouh review - seeking magic in a war
The 21st century learnt afresh about the reality of carpet-bombed cities thanks to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. And the...
Album: Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism
This album has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor Future Nostalgia came along just as the Covid crisis was properly kicking...
Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre review - impassioned agi...
On the morning of the press show of Laughing Boy, the BBC news website’s top story was about the abuse of children with learning...
Guildhall School Gold Medal 2024, Barbican review - quirky-w...
While the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra were performing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie – weirdly, despite its size...
Album: Sia - Reasonable Woman
Sia has well and truly stepped into her power. Gone are the days of releasing songs that were pitched to megastars but turned down (“This Is...
Minority Report, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre review - ill-judg...
Towards the end of David Haig’s new adaptation of Philip...